In 1919, Christian Kent Nelson, an immigrant from Denmark, taught at a high school in Onawa, Iowa. With a partner, he opened the Nelson-Mustard Cream Company, a confectionary store that also sold ice cream. He experimented with various confections and in 1920 came up with a chocolate-covered ice cream bar. Nelson patented his invention, which he named the I-Scream Bar. He also created a jingle: “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.” His ice cream bar sold well at his store but he had no distribution beyond Onawa.

In 1921, Nelson met Russell Stover, who managed an ice cream plant in Omaha, Nebraska and the two signed a partnership agreement to license other companies to manufacture Nelson’s ice cream bar for a fee plus a royalty on each bar sold. The name of the product was changed to Eskimo Pie. It was an immediate success. By the spring of 1922, one million Eskimo Pies were sold daily. Despite the sales, licensees failed to pay their fees and clones popped up around the country. The company became mired in litigation, some of which related to Nelson’s original invention of the chocolate-covered ice cream bar. Stover became discouraged and moved to Denver, Colorado, where he opened the Russell Stover Candy Store.

By the end of 1923, the Eskimo Pie Corporation was near bankruptcy and the following year, it was sold to the United States Foil Company (later renamed Reynolds Aluminum), which had supplied the foil for the Eskimo Pie wrapper. By the late 1920s, Eskimo Pies were sold by street vendors. In 1927, it was the first ice cream to be sold in a vending machine.

The courts eventually held that Nelson’s initial patent was invalid because ice cream had long been dipped in chocolate. By the time the ruling was made, Eskimo Pie was already a household word and sales of the Eskimo Pie increased throughout the 1920s. The ruling did permit the manufacturing of clones, albeit with different names. One such clone was developed by the Isaly family of Youngstown and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who introduced the Klondike Bar in 1922.

In 1930, the Eskimo Pie Corporation was one of the first ice cream companies to begin selling its ice cream to grocery stores. Because grocery stores did not have freezers at the time, the company manufactured round vacuum jars refrigerated with frozen carbon dioxide. They then made containers for their ice cream to fit into the jars. Likewise, they made small vacuum jars for shoppers, most of whom also did not have freezers. Shoppers paid a deposit on the jars to make sure they were returned. Sales of the Eskimo Pie declined during the Depression but increased during World War II, when they were distributed under government contract to the U.S. armed forces. In 1992, the Eskimo Pie Corporation became independent of Reynolds Aluminum but was later acquired by Blue Bell Creamery.